First Lady Tours AIDS Devastation
By Melissa Charbonneau
CBN News
July 12, 2007
CBNNews.com - First Lady Laura Bush just got back from a four-nation tour of Africa, where she reviewed programs that benefit from billions of American tax dollars.
At the Mututa Community Center in Zambia, Africa, volunteers battling diseases that continue to cripple the continent are getting help from the American people.
Mrs. Bush, travelling with her daughter Jenna, recently visited four of Africa's hardest hit nations where she assessed the results of tax-payer funded programs to combat AIDS and malaria. She told CBN News that America's initiatives are saving lives.
"Obviously, they're worth it, and I know Americans believe that, because Americans believe that every single human life has value in it," she said.
Millions of U.S. tax dollars end up in communities such as Chong We, Zambia. International aid groups and faith-based organizations operating there distribute mosquito nets and medications to help prevent and treat AIDS and malaria.
Bush says the Mututa Center is an example of U.S. strategy partnering with local governments, relief groups, and corporate America to provide caregivers with lifesaving drugs and supplies.
Donated bicycles help volunteers reach remote areas to care for the sick.
"So the caregivers hop on the back of their bicycles and ride off to see the patients who are ill at home with AIDS," Mrs. Bush said.
This is the third trip to Africa for Mrs. Bush. She's visited numerous orphanages and hospitals. She saw suffering people everywhere she went.
From a mother's perspective, Mrs. Bush said seeing children suffer was difficult.
"The hardest thing to see or the stories to hear are the orphan-led -- the children-led households; the young children who lost both their parents, and the oldest one, who's maybe eight or 12, has to be the parent to the little brothers and sisters who are still at home. I think that's really one of the saddest effects of AIDS across Africa, are all these millions, literally millions, of orphans," Bush answered.
There are more than 12 million orphans across Sub-Saharan Africa, the continent's most vulnerable. Many are left with nowhere to turn.
"One little boy who said his caregiver wasn't just his friend, but now he was his father because his parents were gone. And those stories are the most moving to me as a mother and I know there are -- a lot of PEPFAR money goes to supporting these vulnerable children," Mrs. Bush said. "Many of them are HIV-positive themselves because they were born with HIV from their parents who were positive. But that, I think, is the part that a mother notices and mourns over the most."
"And you know their own mothers who've gone on would really be so, so sad to see their children left alone," she said.
The First Lady often promotes the role of faith-based groups in distributing U.S. aid. She says they are the ones closest to the people, and the easiest way to deliver care.
Critics have questioned why there is so much focus on the faith-based groups in doing the work here. What makes them uniquely situated to help here?
"A number of Christian and Muslim groups have come together to reach out in their populations, because there is some sort of faith or house group -- house of worship in every community, and they're already there," she said "People already trust their pastor, and they expect their pastor or their imam to be the ones who show them compassion and hope. And of course that's what our religions teach us, and that is to take care of the sick and the weary, and to do what we can."
Mrs. Bush says Congress should fund the presidential proposal to double America's AIDS commitment to Africa funding from $15 to $30 billion.
Although already the world's leader in AIDS funding, some question whether America has the will to continue that support.
"The American people, I hope -- and this is what I see wherever I travel -- have that feeling of generosity and almost sort of moral obligation to step in when there is an emergency like this pandemic disease of AIDS, and like malaria, which kills more than a million people a year in Africa," Mrs. Bush said.
So, what is her hope for the future of Africa? Can the U.S. help eradicate this, and how long would it will take?
"Well, it will take a very, very sustained effort on the part of everyone --on the part of the governments that we are working with, on the part of every NGO, every foundation, every group that can come in," Mrs. Bush said. "Because you need to go to every single village, make sure every family has mosquito nets to sleep under because mosquitoes bite usually at night. And in Africa, that's difficult because there aren't roads everywhere. There is not transportation to every spot. And so it really does require a huge show of will on the part of each of these governments, and everybody else that can possibly help them."
She's calling on all Americans to help. By giving to churches, aid groups, or donating a mosquito net. American parents can also set examples for their own children who will likely never know the devastation of disease that plagues millions of African children every day.
"I see that Americans really do want to reach out. And our world has become so small, because we see every challenge on television," Mrs. Bush said. "We hear, we read on the Internet about things that are going on in every corner of the world. But because our world has become so small, it's harder for us to turn our head, and act like we don't see the ways we can help."
"And I know, from being with Americans everywhere, that they do want to want to help," she concluded.
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